1/3 NL

Villian 1 - Generally TAG, but can make good bluffs when the time is right. Approx. 55 yrs old. Stack =$450

Hero- Stack=$400. I am in my 30s but look younger. I just moved to the table, but had been watching for a while. I doubt villain had any opinions on me.

Hero UTG with AQ makes it $15
Villian 1 calls in MP2
Villian 2 calls in CO

Flop Q33: Pot $45

Being OOP with a flush draw out there, I bet $45
Villian 1 calls after taking about a minute to think
V2 folds

Turn 9 Pot $135

Hero bets $125
Villian 1 again calls after thinking for about 1 minute. I am now thinking a flush draw unlikely.

River J
I hate this card. I am now only beating a busted flush draw or QK. I doubt villain would play QT or worse. How do I play this river?

Your bet sizing is huge. Bet less on the flop and turn. It's not -that- wet a board.


Check/eval now. Leaning fold...a decent villain should fold a FD on the turn and check behind 1 pair here.

It's scary ass **** that he's been calling such huge raises, you're giving **** ass odds. Check. If he bets? Oh boy...

Let's put him on possible hands.

-QQ-AA although he didn't raise on the flop, not everyone does.
-He could also have been on a flush draw, but you sure gave him ****ty odds, unless he had Ad/Kd.
-AQ,QK doesn't seem too likely, because of less combinations, but perhaps.
-Suited connector/gapper with a 3, because there are donks at my casino who call bet's with this.
-There's always the chance he'll bluff if he think's your fold equity is high enough

SO we have to try and give him percentages
QQ-AA: 30
AQ: 7
QK: 8
Draw: 30
3/x : 10
bluff: 15

.08*1 + .3*1 + .15*1 = %55. Looks like a call is in order to whatever he raises.
Can you put a spoiler of what happened?

I still might fold, because the draw/bluff percentage might be smaller, if especially it's gotten to the river.

Given how much you've invested, can't fold with $215 remaining and pot of $385. Check-call.

Pre - fine.
Flop - $30.
Turn - given you bet pot OTF, you could check hoping to extract value on the river. Vs. this type of opponent getting 3 streets of value may be difficult. If you lead, I'd suggest 50-60% pot.

Our preflop raise did narrow the field (which is good, although we are OOP to both opponents, which is bad), but often times this will not be the case at loose tables, so I would also have no problem open limping this hand and playing it for it's multiway properties.

For better or worse, we made such big bets on the flop/turn that we've gotten ourselves into a river spot where the pot is a hugenourmous $385 and we only have $215 left (i.e. we've committed ourselves). Is this something we intended to do? I typically don't like to commit 133bb stacks with a hand as little as TPTK, although I'm guessing arguments could be made for that here. If we didn't mean to commit ourselves, we should have slowed down much more on earlier streets (either by not betting so much or by checking a street).

As played, 3x is already crushing us, as was Q9, as now is QJ, plus some other hands that aren't as likely but still possible (AA/KK/QQ/JJ/99/etc.). We're ahead of other Qxs. It's also possible villain was on a draw. If we feel villain is weighted towards Qx or a showdownable hand, we should shove. If we feel villain is weighted towards a busted draw, we should check and call a shove (noting that a shove is the only reasonable bet size given the pot size and remaining stacks).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Here is where I am wondering if I really screwed up the hand.

River J pot= $385

Hero checks.
Villian, of course, shoves.

It is typically a mistake to stick in ~half our stack only to fold on a fairly blankish river (ok, it's not completely blankish, but still) getting ~3:1 odds against someone who is capable of bluffing.

Gforbetterorworse,wemadeourbed,nowlieinit,imoG

I appreciate the comments. My fear was that if I bet less, I would be giving appropriate implied odds to chase draws, and would make things even harder on later streets. I struggle with bet sizing, especially OOP, and especially multi-way.

You making big bets like that and then c/f river looks like a busted draw that you weren't willing to 3 barrel. I think c/c is the right play in this spot given your flop and turn bets. You still lose to the same hands you lose against shoving, but also gives him rope to hang himself if he had you on a draw and was calling down with a pair under queens or he has QK.

On a side note you are only looking to deny people explicit odds. The only way to correctly deny implied odds is to be short stacked in the first place or to make good folds when they hit.

You want to be aware of implied odds/effective stack sizes to help range opponents, but you can't correctly bet to influence implied without overcommitting or losing value.

I don't think any street was misplayed "if" we are making the plays for the right reasons.

If our villain is a calling station and will call big bets on draws then we should absolutely blast the pot flop and turn.

If our villain is the type of player to "put us on AK" because we raised preflop and he is a call down monkey with any pair on Aceless and Kingless boards then we should absolutely be blasting the pot every street to include the river.

If our villain is both a calling station and will bluff if he misses his draws then we should bet flop and turn and then c/c river giving him a chance to bluff a busted flush draw.

If our villain is a competent villain that never gets his money in bad, then our turn bet is a mistake since a lessor hand cannot call that turn bet. That is, we only want to make bets that lessor hands can call. But I submit that QJ and KQ can and will often call in this spot on a FD board.

River card sucks because it completes a lot of Qx two pair combos that we beat. Now, out of all the playable Qx hands (KQ, QJ, QT, Q9) that we beat we now lose to half of them

In spots like this on the river one slight angle you can take is to just say, "I missed, good hand you got it..." and then check.

a lot of times villains will check back big hands thinking that if they bet you can't call anyways or if they bluff they will sometimes bluff smaller than they would have.

But back to the hand...

the betting isn't necessarily bad or good until we think behind the thought process for the betting and factor in our villain's competency.

In general, the more competent my villain is, the more I will lean towards smaller bets... Or put another way, I bet in such a way that lessor hands can/will call. The more ******ed my villain, the more I can bet.

Not sure I would recommend a douchey angle like this, no?

Gthiswon'tgooverwelllongtermwithyourcustomersG

Agreed dgi. I had a guy come by and congratulate a guy a guy at my table from moving up to NL from 3/6 yesterday and I literally drooled on the table.

I think River should be a check/call. But it depends on the villain. he probably plays all of his AdXd hands like this, plus a few other diamond combos that he calls preflop with. I don't think he has many/any 3x hands in his range preflop. Certainly A3s, but that's only 2 combos, and I think he raises at some point with those.

his only value hands on the river are Q9, QJ, and QQ, 33 and KdTd. We can probably discount all of the non suited versions of Q9 and QJ if this player is truly a TAG. We can further discount those hands because I'm not sure a typical TAG even bets the river all the time with Q9 and QJ, as he should be nervous about AA and KK, which are definitely in our range.

true, it is slightly douchey...

Would need more and better reads on my villain to fold this here. His line doesn't make a whole lot of sense. He is repping incredibly thin. Like QQ and quads. I think a tag folds QJ to a pot sized turn bet almost always here unless he is tilted or you have some sort of history. I think u see a whole bunch of missed fds here and some KQ AQ. Tags aren't calling any 3x hands otherwise he is not tight

Digi love your posts they are pure gold and thank you greatly for your contribution to the community but the angle is poor etiquette and bad for the game